''...where dogs go on with their doggy lives,and the torturers horse scratches it's innocent behind on a tree...''
WH Auden's iconic poem, Mussee Des Beaux Arts, written in 1939 after the poet visited Breughel's 'Fall of Icarus' at the aforementioned museum in Brussels, comments on the continuum of life. More precisely how the Old Masters observed how life goes on regardless. against the relentless march of humanity, until that last vital breath has expired, disaster is confined to 'some untidy spot'.
Stephen Lawlor's practice is steeped in the Old Masters. Not only do they influence what he makes, they somehow underwrite the very purpose of his creativity. The collection of paintings and sculptures reflects two years of intense work; pushing, probing, even wrestling with the material. All in order to discover the relevance of those celebrated masterpieces in contemporary terms. Here the artist has achieved something rare: he has made art about art, avoided the derivative cliches and channelled almost for decades of technical knowledge into singular, clear and powerful cadence.
Emotionally this is painting at its fullest; personally raw but technically refined. To all those who worship at the altar of conceptualism, this is why painting is relevant.
- from Catalogue intro, Oliver Sears, 2014